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Paul Revere warned us 227 years ago that "the British are
coming!" - and now, in terms of the Academy Awards, the British (and their
colonial cohorts) have definitely arrived.

The disproportionate domination this year of top Oscar
categories by Britons and Aussies represents an odd, almost perverse quirk for
an American industry that otherwise rules the known universe.

Of the 20 nominations for acting awards (best actor, best
actress and best supporting actor and actress), a full half of them went to
representatives of the old British Commonwealth (eight English performers and
two Australians). The two Aussies - Russell Crowe as best actor for A
Beautiful Mind and Nicole Kidman as best actress for Moulin Rouge
- count as sexy international superstars, as does British supporting-actress
contender Kate Winslet (Iris).

In contrast, other Imperial entrants may be admired, but
they're hardly idolized. Judi Dench (nominated for best actress in Iris)
may be a perennial Oscar favorite, but she's hardly a bankable box-office star
- nor are supporting-role nominees Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith (Gosford
Park), Jim Broadbent (Iris), Ben Kingsley (Sexy
Beast) and Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings). As for middle-aged
Englishman Tom Wilkinson, despite his richly deserved best-actor nomination
for In the Bedroom, few Americans would recognize his face or his name.

Meanwhile, one of the beleaguered Americans attempting
an Oscar defense against the British invasion is Renee Zellweger - winning
her best-actress nomination in Bridget Jones's Diary for mastering a
flawless London accent and portraying one of the most endearing English girls
of contemporary fiction.

The Rule Britannia theme to this year's Oscars goes
beyond acting categories and extends to the five nominees for best picture.

Gosford Park focuses on the relationships between
servants and masters during a shooting weekend at an English country estate.

Lord of the Rings features some of the world's most
distinguished British actors (Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Cate Blanchett), an English
novel as its source and stunning New Zealand locations.

Moulin Rouge may be set in turn-of-the-century Paris,
but the accents of its stars (Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, Jim Broadbent) and
its director (Baz Luhrmann) ring of Sydney, Glasgow and London.

A Beautiful Mind also features a British star (Paul
Bettany) in a key supporting role to Australian Russell Crowe, while unfolding
in the most aristocratic and English of American settings - the imitation
Oxford of the Princeton campus.

Alone among the five best-picture nominees, In the Bedroom
offers an unequivocally American location with its picturesque portrayal of
coastal Maine. But even here the project relies on its English leading man,
Tom Wilkinson.

American audiences have grown so accustomed to this pervasive
British presence in quality moviemaking that we scarcely recognize how illogical
it is.

The combined population of Australia and the United Kingdom
is only about one-fourth of the population of the United States alone. Each
year, Americans churn out some 10 times the theatrical feature films as our
cousins Over the Pond, and spend perhaps 30 times as much producing them.

Moreover, America remains the world's undisputed economic
and military powerhouse, with an all-conquering pop culture that penetrates
every corner of the globe.

Nonetheless, Anglophiles might argue that the surprising
Hollywood infatuation with English achievements reflects the inherent superiority
of United Kingdom culture. According to this view, the relationship between
Britain and her rude American offspring parallels the connection between ancient
Greece and its successor civilization in Rome. The older culture might be supplanted
by the brute power and organizational genius of the younger empire, but remains
vastly more refined and artistically accomplished.

Such arguments carry enough weight to convince gullible
Yanks that anything with an English accent counts as more cultivated than our
homegrown alternatives; after all, even the earthy American Madonna has begun
speaking like a posh Londoner in her latest incarnation. PBS, our government-supported
television network for the smart and substantive, leans heavily on imported
English material, so much so that the most popular public TV offerings seem
to consist of animals who mate and Britons who don't.

Sure, Upstairs, Downstairs beats Dynasty
in aesthetic excellence, but does that mean that the Spice Girls automatically
deserve more respect than Destiny's Child? Do the tabloid scandals of Prince
Charles register as any less tawdry than the embarrassments of Bill Clinton?

Beyond the silly prejudice about the superiority of all
things English, the outrageous Oscar success of British and Australian performers
owes something to the formidable real-world advantage that these professionals
enjoy over their American counterparts. They emerge from an industry that generally
avoids the blockbuster mentality - the all-consuming focus on spectacular
box-office success that stems from the huge costs and correspondingly swollen
ambitions of most Hollywood projects. Capable, serious performers (Jim Broadbent,
Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen) can thrive for decades in the more modest, less
cutthroat film industry of Britain without winning breakout success.

U.S. production companies concentrate, by contrast, on
generating charismatic, universal stars who can pay the crushing bills -
searching for the next Julia Roberts or Tom Cruise rather than nourishing gifted,
unassuming thespians.

England's outstanding theatrical traditions (remember a
journeyman actor named Shakespeare?) have always provided Hollywood with some
its greatest talent - from Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock
to Anthony Hopkins and Jude Law. The most accomplished Englishmen all do manage
to make the pilgrimage to California for high-profile projects, so that London
will never replace Los Angeles as world center of the entertainment industry.

Despite a trickle of American expatriates to the Mother
Country (including, apparently, Oscar-nominated director Robert Altman) the
talent flows across the Atlantic in an overwhelmingly westward direction.

Nevertheless, the uncanny cinematic achievements of Britons
and Australians deserve special celebration. At Sunday's Oscar celebrations,
dedicated movie fans may well toast the Queen's health with gin and bitters
and hum a few bars of There'll Always Be an
England.